At about the time that Wentworth was scrawling his note in Vane's rooms a slender young woman, dressed in a grey that shimmered like the winter-sea in sunlight, wearing a hat that had the air of having lit upon her hair for the moment only,--merely to give the world an instant's glance at the gracious combination that woman's beauty and man's millinery could effect--was coming out from one of those huge bazaars where you can buy almost everything in the world except the things you want. As she reached the doors, a young man, entering, brushed her arm; his sleeve caught her portemonnaie. He stooped for it, offered it hastily, and then--and not until then, gave a little "Oh!" of--what was it, joy? or mere wonder, or both? "Oh," he repeated, "I can't go in--now. It's--it's ages since I could say two words to you. 'Good-morning!' and 'How do you do?' has been the limit of our talk. Besides, you have a parcel. It weighs, at the very least, an ounce. I could never think of letting you tire yourself so." He took the flimsy mite from her, and ranged his steps to hers. It was true, what he had said about their brief encounters. Do what she would to forget that morning in the Park, and the weeks before it, Jeannette Vanlief had not quite succeeded. Not even the calm dissertations of her father, the arguments pointing to the unfathomable freakishness of human nature, had altogether ousted her aversion to Orson Vane. It was an aversion made the more keen because it came on the heels of a strong liking. She had been prepared to like this young man. Something about him had drawn her; and then had come the something that had simply flung her away. Yet, to-day, he seemed to be the Orson Vane that she had been prepared to like. She remembered some of the strange things her father had been talking about. She noted, as Orson spoke, that the false tenor note was gone out of his voice. But she was still a little fluttered; she could not quite trust herself, or him. "But I am only going to the car," she declared. "It will hardly be worth while. I mustn't take you out of your way." "I see," he regretted, "you've not forgotten. I can't explain; I was--I think I was a little mad. Perhaps it is in the family. But--I wish you would imagine, for to-day, that we had only just known each other a very little while, that we had been in that little bookshop only a day or so ago, that you had read the book, and we had met again, and--." He was looking at her with a glow in his eyes, a tenderness--! Her eyes met his for only an instant, but they fathomed, in that instant, that there was only homage, and worship, and--and something that she dared not spell, even to her soul--in them. That burning greed that she had seen in the Park was not there. She smiled, wistfully, hesitatingly. Yet it was enough for him to cling to; it buoyed his mood to higher courage.